CAUSE, that which brings about any change in the state, condition, circumstances, etc., of things; that which produces an effect.
In philosophy, that by which something known as the effect is produced and without which it could not have existed. To give a satisfactory notion of all the senses in which this word has been used it would be necessary to review all the teachings of metaphysics from the time of Aristotle downward. The various positions of the conflicting philosophers can here be only very briefly indicated. Aristotle states causes to be of four kinds: efficient, formal, material and final. The efficient is the force or agency by which a result or effect is produced; the formal the means or instrument by which it is produced; the material, the sub stance from which it is produced; the final, the purpose or end for which it is produced. A scientific cause demands the recognition of all the essential conditions, any one of which being absent the effect could not take place. Locke finds the origin of the notion of cause in sensa tion. Assuming that bodies have the property of modifying each other, it is only necessary to observe them to perceive and be driven to admit the principle of causality. Hume declares the power which we attribute to one object over another to be a chimera; such a power does not exist, or if it does we can have no idea of it. What we call cause and effect is merely two phenomena always following in the same order and which we have fallen into the habit of associating in our minds in such a way that on perceiving the first we inevitably expect the second. According to Leibnitz there is no existence, however humble, but is a force, that is, a real cause. The notion of force is the base even of the notion of existence; all that which is has a certain virtuality, a certain causative power. The human soul, like all the other limited forces in this world, is but a monad isolated in itself, but yet in whose inner being the whole creation is reflected, and whose move ments have been from the beginning co-ordained by Divine Wisdom with the harmonious move ment of the universe. Kant's doctrine is that
the notion of cause and the principle of causality certainly exist in our minds; but they are only simple forms of our understanding, or the en tirely subjective, albeit inevitable, conditions of thought. We are compelled by a law or a form pre-existing in our intellect to dispose all the objects our imagination represents, or all the phenomena our experience can discover, ac cording to the relation of cause and effect; but we do not know if anything really exists, in dependent from our intellect, which resembles a cause, a •force or effective power. Against the doctrines of the intuitionalists it has been urged that the mere statement that the mind possesses a belief in causation proves nothing; some men believe in it, others do not, and unanimity is necessary to the establishment of a universal belief. Nay, more, the mere univer sality of a belief is no conclusive proof of its correctness, as put in the words of the late John Stuart Mill —"A mere disposition to believe, even if supposed instinctive, is no guarantee for the truth of the thing believed. If, indeed, the belief amounted to an irresistible necessity, there would be no use in appealing from it, because there would be no possibility of altering it. But even then the truth of the belief would not follow: it would only follow that mankind were under a permanent necessity of believing what might possibly not be true; just as they were under a temporary necessity,— quite as ir resistible while it lasted — of believing that the heavens moved and the earth stood still. The things which it has been supposed that nobody could help believing are innumerable, but no two (generations would give the same catalogue of them." The theological question of a First Cause is debated on the ground that matter of Itself is inert, that spirit is active, that in order of existence one spirit or active force must be the first and uncaused cause. This is based on the common fallacy which demands a first term for every series, even though series with out first terms are common and consistent.